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New Orleans Restaurants, Still Limping, Lead City’s Revival
April 15, 2008
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The number of food-service establishments in the metropolitan area has dropped to 1,355 from 1,882 pre-Katrina, according to a March 2008 report by Jim Funk, president of the Louisiana Restaurant Association. Insurance costs have risen 95 percent, labor 31 percent, water 37 percent and electricity 31 percent.
New Orleans Restaurants, Still Limping, Lead City’s Revival
Review by John Mariani
April 14 (Bloomberg) — Ask three New Orleanians about the state of their city and you’ll get three answers: It’s going great; it’s coming along; it’s still struggling. Somewhere between the last two answers lies the condition of the Big Easy’s restaurant business.
After three visits to the city since Katrina hit in August 2005, I’ve found that the restaurants have been in the forefront of bringing back New Orleans’s deep-rooted, let-the-good-times- roll vitality. Yet many must contend with a slump in tourism and the convention business, high insurance and labor costs, and finding enough people to work in their kitchens and dining rooms.
“We still have a `Now Hiring’ sign outside,” says Tory McPhail, chef at the illustrious Commander’s Palace in the Garden District, which took 13 months to reopen. “Before Katrina, we had 50 experienced cooks in the kitchen. Only four of them returned when we opened.”
The number of food-service establishments in the metropolitan area has dropped to 1,355 from 1,882 pre-Katrina, according to a March 2008 report by Jim Funk, president of the Louisiana Restaurant Association. Insurance costs have risen 95 percent, labor 31 percent, water 37 percent and electricity 31 percent.
The same report notes that the city has only 67 percent of its pre-Katrina population.
Call the venerable Creole restaurant Dooky Chase in Mid-City and you’ll get a recorded message saying it is only open for takeout.
Nevertheless, local food writer Gene Bourg insists that “almost all the old white-tablecloth restaurants have reopened. I don’t know anyone who’s revisited the city and complained that his favorite place is gone.”
Tourist Business
The drop in tourism and conventions has most affected French Quarter restaurants like Brennan’s, Antoine’s and Arnaud’s, while those outside the central business district are faring better because they depend more on a faithful local clientele.
New restaurants like Patois and Bistro Daisy, both in Uptown, are full most nights of the week, and I couldn’t get a table until 9 p.m. on a Saturday at the 22-year-old Brigtsen’s, in the Riverbend area, whose Web-site motto is “Building New Orleans — One Plate at a Time.”
Younger chefs have taken the lead in restoring the city’s restaurant scene. John Besh, who won the James Beard Foundation’s “Best Chef in the Southeast” award in 2006, reopened both his heavily damaged August restaurant in the central business district and Besh Steakhouse in Harrah’s Casino to good business. Since then he also opened Luke, a French Creole brasserie in the Hilton St. Charles Hotel, and took over La Provence in Lacombe, Louisiana. Both are reportedly doing well.
Fresh Ideas
In some ways, Katrina helped wash away some of the city’s entrenched culinary conservatism. You can still get all the classic New Orleans dishes in abundance, from the signature oysters Rockefeller at Antoine’s to bananas Foster at Brennan’s, yet chefs like Besh have brought fresh ideas into the repertoire.
At Luke, the daily specials include dishes like beef short ribs and tripe casserole with Creole tomatoes and Louisiana popcorn rice on Sunday and blanquette of veal cheeks with wild mushrooms and pasta on Thursday.
Chefs Slade Rushing and Allison Vines-Rushing are showing tremendous promise with their menu at the new MiLa (think Mississippi and Louisiana) in the Renaissance Pere Marquette Hotel. Dishes like pan-roasted sweetbreads with black truffles, grits and sherry bacon jus, or a dessert of muscadine wine gelee with mint chiffonade, are more in line with contemporary cuisine in cities like New York and Chicago.
Crawfish Ravioli
At Bistro Daisy, chef-owner Anton Schulte stuffs ravioli with crawfish and mascarpone, then cuddles them with wilted leeks, roasted tomato and a brandied herb cream. A seared duck confit is served over spinach and an almond couscous with smoked duck breast and a reduction of garlic and sultana raisins.
Even at tradition-bound Commander’s Palace, chef McPhail is broadening the menu while using Gulf Coast and Southern ingredients. He keeps favorites like the turtle soup with sherry and the Creole bread pudding souffle on the menu alongside brilliant new ideas like foie gras “Du Monde” — a beautiful presentation of fig-and-foie gras beignet fritters with vanilla, cracked coffee beans, foie gras cafe au lait and a chicory coffee mist. It may be the best dish in New Orleans right now.
Few doubted that New Orleans restaurants would come back to life after Katrina. Yet a lot of restaurateurs are still jittery while they wait for their cooks and waiters to return and pray that another hurricane doesn’t hit this season.
(John Mariani writes on wine for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer on this story: John Mariani at john@johnmariani.com.
Last Updated: April 14, 2008 00:01 EDT
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